I, [INSERT FABULOUS NAME OF YOUR CHOOSING], do solemnly swear that there is nothing wrong with a good story. Super duper solemnly.

It seems simple enough, doesn’t it?

Track human beings back to when they were banging their heads off cave walls and calling it entertainment and it is the evolution of the story. The he-said she-said of spread word from poet to neighbour to seanchaí to your own ear, to your head, to your heart, to your funny bones and your sore knees, and back out your mouth to someone else.

We have no idea why we do this but we do it. The words aren’t the thing, the story is.

Looking at the fact that Buffy’s turning twenty, it’s easy to say that this is true, and even easier to forget that we’ve forgotten how important that is. We’re currently bathing in an era of television so gritty and so golden that it could probably be ingested by a US President, and yet whenever I think of Buffy I feel a twinge of disappointment for the way things have turned out.

A good script consultant is a writer’s best friend. From turning a cracking idea into a coherent plot, to putting a necessary sheen on dialogue and imagery, a knowledgeable outside pair of eyes can make all the difference.

Who Am I?

Alan Flanagan – writer, programmer and script editor for theatre, radio, film and television for the past decade.

For WildSound, I’ve spent four years delivering feedback on scripts for film, television, theatre, radio and prose. This has ranged from one-pagers to in-depth conversations, while I’ve also judged thousands of short films for their monthly film festival.

For Big Finish Productions (LINK), I’ve acted as a writer, script editor, and showrunner on dozens of hours of the company’s Dark Shadowsradio series. Shortlisted for the 2015 BBC Audio Drama Awards.

For theatre, I ran theatre company Refractive Lens for four years with shows in Edinburgh, Dublin and London, and have written over a dozen plays – from historical drama to adaptation to science-fiction to horror.

For film, I’ve written and produced two short films in the past year — with screenings at Brighton and Berlin film festivals — while also writing sci-fi feature ‘Pindrop’.

For television, I have several projects in the works, from straight drama to comedy to science fiction and horror — and understand the process of combining a cracking pilot and a thorough bible to make a piece marketable.

I also lecture screenwriting at Brighton University, and with a background in acting and directing I understand how a writer can get the best out of the production machine.

What Do I Offer?

From initial one-sheeters and treatments through to full scripts in all media, I deliver concrete feedback on ways to tackle research, plotting, character, theme, dialogue and imagery — including advice on creating a professional document with industry standard presentation and formatting.

While every script and every writer is different, I know from years of experience that good script feedback cuts to the heart of what makes a story sing — encouraging a writer to amplify what’s working, to slice what’s not, and to take them from the kernel of an idea through to a document that can be confidently sent to agents, producers and directors.

6-month script mentoring: Ideal for a writer looking to take a project from inception to first draft and beyond, this will involve an initial action plan leading into ongoing written and face-to-face feedback = £1200

Recommendation: 15% discount (for 1 session) for you and the person you recommend

I’ll make this short-ish and sweet, because I’m in a hurry, and I truly believe that when dealing with sensitive issues it’s very important to blast the thing out and never proof-read.

So about a month a half ago I was on a boat. This is important because it’s important that you know my life involves boats, therefore making me a fancy playboy or a Norwegian handcream ad. I was talking to a friend of mine, a fellow theatre practitioner, about our various interests, and I was saying that I felt I had a bit of a blind spot about race. I’ve striven to represent many things in my writing to date: good female characters, issues of ageing, sexuality and disability, and of course the word ‘striven’.

My friend’s response was that we should be inspired by what we’re inspired by, and you can’t force inspiration. My response was “well of COURSE I can”, coming from the point of view that I like to pump out about ten pieces of new work a year, and that inspiration comes from falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes rather than just exploring the things I already like.

Anyway, we then got really drunk so I don’t remember much after that.

The point is, several weeks later (aka about a month ago), I was looking at the various “hey would you like to write something for free hey EXPOSURE” London play nights – which I do actually like, because I like writing fast and as mentioned not looking back – and spotted one with a theatre company called Director’s Cut.

I considered not naming them in this post, but sure let’s see what happens.

Their show was called ‘Drafts’, and the program was to be short plays that took the format of ‘the email that you drafted, and the email that you sent’. I thought it was a nice idea, something started snowballing a little in my head, so the morning of the deadline I got up and just blasted out a ten minute piece.

The play, ‘A to Z’, was about two women who were reconnecting after having taken divergent paths after secondary school — one had fallen on hard times after a broken marriage and had two kids struggling to get by, the other had gone on to “make something herself” and married the other’s ex-boyfriend. They drafted their emails, but then there were the ones they actually sent. I thought it was a nifty little idea, so I sent it off.

Directors Cut seemed to like the idea as well, because they accepted it into the festival.

I should mention at this point that the two characters were named Alison and Zahara (hence ‘A to Z’). Part of their background was that Zahara had immigrated in the eighties, at the height of ‘Feed The World’ mania, so Alison had shielded her from some Bono-fuelled bullying — then watched as Zahara outpaced her in every area of her life (or so she thinks). The script’s here, if you want to have a look.

I was nicely excited about being part of the festival – I’d done Theatre 503 and Pensive Federation stuff before and it’s a nice way to just throw work at the wall and see what sticks. They sent me a note from their script editor just saying that it was good but maybe could be shortened a little, something I thought I’d leave until seeing a reading to see what could go.

On the Monday of the initial rehearsal week, I got a lovely introductory email from the head of the festival to the director, the two actresses, and myself. I immediately responded with many exclamation marks because I’m a cretin, and ran off to work. Only later that day did I check my email, click on the link to the actresses’ Spotlight accounts, and think:

“Wow, those women are white. That’s interesting.”

I felt awful that there’d been some sort of mistake, that I hadn’t flagged Zahara’s race enough. Because the script, if you take a look, isn’t about Zahara being black, or Alison being white, but it does help to shade out their relationship. I immediately emailed the head of the festival to tell her, apologizing if it wasn’t made clear enough, and hoping there’d be time to rectify the casting in time for the festival. Or steadying myself in case it’d have to be pulled.

It honestly never occurred to me that there would be a third option.

I received an email back apologizing that they’d missed this information, but explaining that they would not be able to find anyone to fill the role by that Saturday for the first read-through. However, what they did suggest — and I’m using the exact phrase here — were some “tweaks” that could be made to the script so that Zahara was no longer black.

I kind of just sat at my laptop and laughed, in the same way that one might at a loved one’s funeral or during a bank robbery. Was this really their suggestion?

I dropped a polite email back saying I didn’t think it was appropriate, and then emailed the director, hoping she might know someone to fill the gap (though I was already feeling a bit sour about the festival at this point). Again, I got a similar email back, with the same phrasing – “tweak” yourself to a white new you.

This did piss me off, but I gave one last polite email a try — had they tried scrambling for other actresses? Why didn’t they spot this when some of the “tweaks” they suggested were about the character’s name? — but got one last, quite long email.

I should at this point say that in hindsight I do understand why this happened. Small companies are under pressure, doing free shows with unpaid characters and difficult overheads — I don’t think there was any malice in this. But as I said in my emails, the option of whitewashing the piece should never have come up. We have to stop putting that option on the table, because other writers looking for a bit of exposure will take it.

This last, long email — from their casting person — assured me that after many years of casting she had never met an older black actress, and as such it would be impossible to find anyone in time. The implicit statement, of course, was that they hadn’t looked, so I then unleashed the kraken, although as a polite Irishman my kraken wears a bow tie and says “fudge” a lot.

I explained that I found it disappointing that at the fringe level of theatre, where diversity should be valued before it’s chipped away by the “market”, it’s wrong to think of black characters as something that can be ditched when time gets tight. I also said that I was very sad about it partially because Zahara’s race was an aspect of her character, and not the subject of the play. I believe that writing polemics about “issues” can do a lot of good work, but also seeing characters just living and doing and being informed by — but not defined by — their race can be a really healthy way to tell stories.

Look, my play isn’t going to change anyone’s life. But I liked the characters and I respected them enough to say a firm no.

I got an email back saying they found my comments disingenuous, and that was that.

As I mentioned, I don’t think there was any malice in this exchange, but it left me laughing and a little sad at the what the fuckery of it all.

So I felt compelled to write this, and saying who was involved, because everyone is very good at saying that racism and sexism and ageism are rife in the entertainment industry — but their deep, heartfelt passion seems to stop at naming any names.

I was reminded of that this week when the director of ‘Iron Man 3’ puppy-whined that he’d had to make the villain of the film a man instead of woman. Everyone seemed to gasp and feel outraged and failed to ask two questions: ‘Why didn’t you say fuck off I’m the director?’ and ‘Could you please name the person who told you to do this?’

If we don’t do the first and the second, then we’re all just farting into hot air balloons and bitching when the damn thing doesn’t take off.

Which is a spectacularly awkward image on which to end this blog post, but I’ve got some writing to do.

I am the best writer that ever was. My worlds are the greatest we have ever, or will ever, witness.

I am a god.

It’s a necessary arrogance. I’m Irish, so I don’t say these things. I bashfully say that maybe I’ve done something that might be on somewhere at some point. It took me seven years to call myself a writer in day-to-day conversation.

But underneath? You’re all shit on God’s shoe compared to me.

So being the best, you can see how I’d be furious with #wakingthefeminists. Inspired by Ireland’s Abbey Theatre’s — Ireland’s national theatre’s — decision to programme its retrospective ‘Waking The Nation’ with only one female playwright, Waking The Feminists is a call to the Abbey, to other theatres, to the arts in general and even beyond to start looking at how and why female voices aren’t being heard.

The initial furore centred around the Abbey, and artistic director Fiach Mac Conghail had the good sense to engage in the debate, but perhaps not the good sense to recognize when unconscious biases could be at play. This concept, that through no-one’s deliberate action, women and people from minorities are being excluded – is one worth pausing on.

People who oppose Waking The Feminists aren’t monsters (well some of them are, but that’s what you get for reading below the fold), they’re people who genuinely can’t see how a level playing field and a ‘level playing field’ aren’t the same thing. That there’s a difference between being treated equally and being treated fairly. Equality is making sure everyone gets to use the same entrance; fairness is installing a ramp. When a person walks into an interview or submits a play they are not just a piece of paper or a present moment, they are the sum total of all their experiences to that point.

But still… it doesn’t feel right, does it? I’m the best writer in the world. I have the best stories. Surely these things should be judged on merit.

There’s that word: merit. Meritocracy, more accurately.

When we talk about the situation at the Abbey, and about the idea of gender (or other) representation, this word keeps coming up. Everyone should be judged on merit, on the quality of their work, and not the colour of their skin or whether their junk is an innie or an outie. Again, this makes sense. Again, the people who oppose Waking The Feminists have a point. Again, they should be listened to. And again, I’m the best.

But the notion of a meritocracy does beg two questions: what is merit, and when should it be judged? Continue reading →